Humans have long sought to learn what the future may hold for them. Over the millennia methods and devices for predicting the future have ranged from shaman reading the entrails of animals, to astrologers, and phrenologists. In more modern time, fortune telling has assumed a role that is more entertaining than serious.
A very popular fortune telling entertainment device is the so-called "Magic Eight Ball" product. This device typically is sized and shaped to look like a pool eightball. The device is hollow, filled with a liquid and has a transparent window at the bottom or base of the device. Within the device is a multi-surfaced float with different "answers" printed on the different surfaces. The number of answers is limited by the number of surfaces on the float, and is typically less than perhaps a dozen or so.
In practice, a user might ask the device a question, for example, will this application result in a patent. The user then shakes and inverts the device. Eventually the float rises and presses a surface (with an answer) against the window, which is now facing upward. The "answer" might be "yes", or "not obvious", or some other saying.
Since the device preferably is hand-holdable, the sphere portion of the ball is typically a few inches (perhaps 5-6 cm) in diameter. This dimension more or less dictates a maximum size for the float, and thus a maximum number of float surfaces. While creating more surfaces or facets on the float can allow for more answers, the size of the font with which the answers are printed or stamped into the float surfaces decreases. This in turn makes it harder to read smaller and smaller answers from a device that tries to provide a greater number of answers. Often the type with which the answer is printed is font size 10 or so. Further, such devices can be difficult to read under the best of circumstances, especially by elderly people or others with diminished eye sight.
The different "answers" of course appear more or less randomly, which promotes enjoyment, especially when the "answer" is incongruous to the question. However, for spectators observing an individual using the device, their enjoyment will be somewhat delayed because only one person at a time can read the answer. Often the person holding the device will see the answer and, if it is not too embarrassing, will then read it aloud, whereupon the spectators can join in the fun.
However due to the relatively small number of answers, the entertainment value of such devices can soon wear off. Unfortunately typically there is no way to open the device and change floats to change the collection of potential answers. The device is sealed at the time of manufacture. Another deficiency is that small children may be precluded from enjoying the device unless their hands are big enough to hold the device, and unless they can read. Further, the relatively heavy device is fragile and can break, if dropped, with resultant leakage of fluid over the floor or carpet area. Finally, the device provides only one the of entertainment stimulation, namely visual for the user close enough to the window to read an answer.
There have been attempts in the art to modernize entertainment devices that purport to predict the future. U.S. Pat. No. 4,765,623 to Cardillo (1988) describes a crystal ball toy comprising a light-permeable sphere, apparently a clear plastic ball, mounted on a base. The device appears to have required reasonably strong ambient light to operate. A light sensor within the device sensed when ambient light was interrupted by a user's hand casting a shadow on the light-permeable sphere. Such a double-interruption of ambient light randomly caused annunciation of one of some twenty-eight stored voice responses. Applicants believe the Cardillo device was sold commercially as part of a board or card game. The device was not especially robust, appears to have required ambient light for operation, and seems not to have met with great commercial success.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,482,277 to Young (1996) used a form factor similar to Cardillo's, e.g., a somewhat fragile appearing sphere mounted to a base. Cardillo disposed two electrical contacts on the surface of the sphere, which when touched by a user's hand would complete an electrical circuit, causing the sphere to emit light and a simulated voice message. Whether Young's device would operate reliably when the two electrical contacts eventually tarnished is not known.
In short, there is a need for a robust entertainment fortune telling device that can provide longer entertainment value than prior art devices. Preferably such device should provide a relatively large number of responses, perhaps a hundred or more, and should annunciate such responses audibly, so that all may instantaneously share in the response. To further augment the entertainment value, such device should emit unusual and entertaining sounds in an initiation period before the answer is annunciated, and preferably also provide visual entertainment. Such device should optimally provide an ability to alter the library of answers, including the ability to permit a user to record his or her own answers. The device should optionally allow answers to be annunciated in the user's voice or a humorous variation thereof. Finally, such device should be relatively lightweight and inexpensive to produce, should not require ambient light to function, and should be useable even by children and elderly persons without undue fear of breakage.
The present invention provides such a device.